SDSU Student Found Slain Near I-15

A 20-year-old honor student who called her parents Saturday night to say she was on her way home was found dead 12 hours later in a creek bed off Interstate 15, an apparent slaying victim.

San Diego police found the clothed body of San Diego State University student Cara Evelyn Knott near the foot of Mercy Road in the Penasquitos Creek bed about 8:45 a.m. Sunday. Her family had been searching for her along freeways between Escondido and her family’s El Cajon home for more than seven hours.

Her white 1968 Volkswagen was found 500 feet from her body. The car keys were still in the ignition and the gas tank was full. “It started right up, there wasn’t any car trouble,” Cara’s father, Sam Knott, said.

Deputy Coroner Dan Matticks said Sunday that an autopsy will be performed today but that trauma to Cara’s body indicated that she had been slain.

She suffered head injuries and multiple scrapes, he said. “It was definitely a homicide,” Matticks said. It was not immediately determined if the victim had been sexually assaulted.

Authorities said Cara may have been thrown from a bridge on Old Highway 15 that runs beneath Interstate 15 south of Poway Road.

A graduate of Valhalla High School, Cara was a junior at SDSU, where she was studying to become an elementary school teacher.

She had called her parents at 9 p.m. Saturday to let them know she was on her way home from her boyfriend’s house in Escondido, Sam Knott said. She would usually call before heading home, he added.

“She was a very conscientious girl. It is a 45-minute drive, so we knew when she didn’t come home by 10 that something was wrong,” her father said.

Knott said he called police before 11 p.m., and also asked for assistance from sheriff’s deputies in Poway. He said he was told by authorities that he could not file a missing persons report until his daughter had been missing for 24 hours.

“It was Catch 22. So what do you do? You have to respond on your own initiative,” he said.

Knott, his two other daughters, Cynthia and Cheryl, his son-in-law and Cara’s boyfriend, Wayne Bautista, began searching Interstate 15 about 11 p.m.

“We combed the freeway and off-ramps looking for her car,” Knott said.

They found her abandoned vehicle parked by the road about 6:30 a.m. and phoned police. Police officers found her body about two hours later.

A credit card sales slip found in her car indicated that Cara had stopped for gasoline at the Chevron station near the North County Fair shopping center.

“We figure she was abducted,” Knott said. Coroner’s deputy Matticks said the body had been in the creek bed for more than six hours when it was found.

Knott said he had encouraged all his daughters to learn how to defend themselves against assault, and Cara had attended a rape prevention seminar about two years ago.

The Knott family is offering a $10,000 reward for information that may lead to the apprehension of a suspect in Cara’s death.

“It is so frustrating--who can you turn to? We are trying to alert the public,” her father said. “It is so futile. I don’t know what else to do,”

San Diego police did not disclose details of their investigation.